


Gauntlets and Greaves Drabbles

by monogalya



Category: RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Music, Angst, Character Death, Character Study, F/M, Feelings, Feelings Realization, Feels, Ficlet Collection, Fluff, Musicians, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-04-22
Packaged: 2019-02-26 16:20:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 4,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13239489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monogalya/pseuds/monogalya
Summary: A series of little drabbles for gauntlets and greaves.1. musician au2. a routine/tradition3. song pt 14. song pt 25. character death6. breakup7. first meeting





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tbh im just feeling inspired by this photo of shirtless [healy](https://www.instagram.com/p/BdDWa-mlbv6/?hl=en&taken-by=the1975).  
> a series of little drabbles for gng. in this one, they are both musicians in different bands.

#### 1 → you caught the light

 

The library is abnormally warm. Mercury took off his shirt ages ago. Yang sits on the carpeted floor, dumbfounded by how good he looks standing there in only his jeans strumming his guitar.

It isn’t the fact that he’s shirtless that captures Yang’s attention. She’s seen him wearing way less and has had the opportunity to appreciate the build of his body many times before. Rather, it’s the setting that catches her off-guard: the shelves of books in the background that are just the right colors, the warm lighting, the smell of paper and ink, the sound of an undeveloped melody he plays.

They’re in a nook of the mansion’s massive library. The lights in the enclosed corner they’re in tend toward the natural yellow instead of the fluorescent glaring white Yang’s used to. The shadow of his guitar strap stretches across the bare skin of Mercury’s chest and stomach. When he cranes his neck to concentrates his eyes on the guitar pick plucking the strings, the motion causes his body to be further covered in shadows. With every move he makes, the shadows glide, and his skin looks different each time.

This is a performance of its own, Yang thinks.

Mercury has invited her to his band’s shows on multiple occasions. She has watched them from the crowd and from backstage. She has seen him in the recording studio and has seen them practice too. Nothing really compares to this.

He isn’t even playing a song--he’s just experimenting. He starts and stops, plays variations of a sequence of notes over and over again, trying to find something that sounds right. She knows that it matters a lot to him. His songs have intensity because they’re real and true, but Mercury always manages to keep the songs mysterious as well. Yang absentmindedly wonders what this one is about, though she knows that she’s watching him more than she is listening.

Yang finds that doing this, just looking at Mercury, enjoying the view and the moment, is incredibly satisfying and realizes that oh shit, maybe she fell harder than she intended to.

 

* * *

 

Mercury holds his guitar out to her, and Yang shrugs his hoodie off her shoulders before taking the guitar. In his opinion, she should have taken it off a long time ago because the library is so warm. He took his shirt off minutes after they entered. Underneath the hoodie Yang wears a tank top, also his. Her entire yellow and black prosthetic is now visible.

Yang sits back down on the floor. She wastes no time and jumps right into the guitar solo she wanted him to hear, her fingers fluttering from string to string.

Mercury isn’t really listening. He’s paying more attention to what he’s seeing than what he’s hearing and it’s not because Yang’s a mediocre guitarist--Yang’s a better guitarist than most of them out there.

The thing is Mercury has noticed, after going to Yang’s shows and watching her practice with her bandmates, that she almost always keeps her right arm covered. Yang makes an effort to hide her prosthetic, usually with her fingerless gloves. Though her robotic fingers are still in sight, she conceals the rest of her arm. But now, her entire arm is out there for him to see.

This isn’t the first time he has laid eyes on her prosthetic; Mercury’s seen it all before. But, as she sits there strumming the guitar, he gets to fully appreciate her prosthetic arm, and this makes him content.

Though Yang is an open person in general, Mercury feels that he knows a lot about her. Long nights spent talking about their nightmares, downtime spent joking and teasing and flirting and making out, quiet mornings after sex spent tracing fingers over each other’s scars or just staring at each other. He knows her better than most people do and he can say that the same goes the other way around.

Yang moves her leg and touches his with hers, breaking him out of his thoughts. Mercury can feel the contact through his jeans on his prosthetic leg. He lifts his eyes to meet hers and immediately knows that that’s what she intended. She flashes a smile at him, and he gives her one too in return.

 

* * *

 

Mercury pulls Yang towards him and moves the guitar aside. They settle down, her back to his chest, her head tucked under his chin. While she leans against him, he reaches out for her hand and threads his fingers in between her metal ones.

“What are you doing?” she says.

Mercury continues to play with her fingers, moving them around slowly. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, actually. Just lazy nonsensical movements for no particular reason. But he knows that he’s comfortable, and again, content.

He raises her hand to his lips and kisses her knuckles one by one. Then he switches, reaches out for the other hand to do the same.

“You have nice hands,” he says.

Yang rolls her eyes, but she doesn’t pull her hand away, so he continues. He smiles against the back of her hand and then gently bites the skin there. When he bites her index finger, she laughs and shifts to face him. He lets go of her hand as they change their position; he moves his legs and she sits on his lap, wrapping one arm around his neck.

Mercury finds Yang’s metal hand again and resumes holding it. She smiles.

“Can’t let go, can you?” she says.

He smirks. “Guess I can’t.”

It warms her heart more than Yang expected it to. The feeling’s mutual; she doesn’t want to let go either.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alt: hallucinations and feelssss.
> 
> i should mention that i do not intend for each chapter to be related to the others. they occur in diff universes w diff timelines and diff plots, unless specified. also they will vary in length. cough this chapter is short

 

#### 2 → all the moods

 

Yang wakes to find him having a nightmare.

She remembers the first time it happened. It was early on, when they were sleeping together and denying that they meant something to each other. She shook him awake, genuinely worried, and when his eyes shot open, she found that she was right to be concerned because he looked like he had seen hell.

Yang hates that he feels the need to keep the nightmares to himself, like he can’t have it if someone knows. But she is glad that he did decide in the end to talk to her about his hallucinations. They spend too much time together anyway for him to hide it from her. And by now, she sees right through him.

So she sits up on the bed and so does he. Mercury wraps his arms around her and she asks if he’s all right. He gives a vague answer like always does just to piss her off. She kisses him briefly, then cuts to the chase and asks about the nightmare. She keeps his hand in hers while they talk about it. She makes sure of it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so these next two chapters are going to be song based  
> this is set around vol 3, also the time between vol 3 and 4  
> alt: yangst
> 
> [ hopeless](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6W2dG3fcdks) → halsey  
>  _cause you know the truth hurts, but secrets kill_  
>  _can’t help thinking that i love it still_  
>  _still here, must be something real_  
>  _cause you know the good die young, but so did this_  
>  _and so it must be better than i think it is_  
>  _give me those eyes, it’s easy to forgive_

 

#### 3 → recovery

 

Yang wakes up again. Because that's how life works, right? As long as you’re not dead, you will always wake up, no matter how painful it is to be awake and alive.

She makes her way to the bathroom and comes face to face with the same reflection she sees every day in the mirror. Same long hair, same tired eyes, same half of her arm that’s not there.

The simple act of thinking about her arm and everything that happened is enough to shake her. Yang wants badly to scream, or cry, or both, but her dad is home. Ever since she returned to Patch after the fall of Beacon, Taiyang was on high alert, watching her every move like she was fragile and ready to break at any time. Yang still doesn’t know if he is right about that, but she resolves to keep it together today. She runs a hand through her hair, then steadies herself on the sink.

* * *

She can’t say that he never told her anything. Because he did. He opened up to her willingly, which he never did with anyone else, and that made her feel special.

But even though Mercury told her things about himself that nobody knew, Yang knows that she doesn’t truly know him. She wonders if she ever really trusted him. At the time, she accepted the fact that he hid things from her, but she didn’t know how bad the secrets were and how much it would hurt to discover the truth.

Despite everything, Yang can’t help but think that if her feelings hurt so intensely, what they had must have been something real.

* * *

Yang can say that it started and ended quickly.

She dove headfirst into this mess. They were both thrill-seekers and what could she say, the guy was attractive. They snuck around, walked with their arms around each other, sparred for fun, hopped over fences, searched for trouble.

It ended with a verbal fight, a physical fight, then a major battle. First one: screaming at the top of their lungs, saying that they hated each other, leaving absolutely livid. Second: they took their anger out on each other during the tournament’s singles round, he told her there wouldn’t be a next time and attacked her, she broke his leg and felt no regret because he had deserved it. Then the Battle of Beacon: running around fighting Grimm left and right, worrying about her sister, her teammates, and her classmates, losing two friends, losing a fight badly, losing her arm.

She hasn’t seen him since then and she hasn’t been the same since that night.

* * *

Pyrrha against Penny. It was bound to be a great fight. They were good fighters and good people.

“The good die young. They didn’t deserve what happened to them and neither do you,” her father said.

The more she reflects on the night’s events, the more she doubts herself. It makes her recovery exhausting. Her days are full of tears, moping, brooding, flashbacks that take her by surprise and bring her to her knees with the crushing sheer realness of them. Nights are full of nightmares, mostly Adam Taurus terrorizing her dreams.

The worst part of recovery is thinking about Mercury. She knows that she hates him, but at the same time she can’t help cherishing the time they had together, even if it pains her to do so. She remembers something, a memory dear to her that reminds her how good they were together, but then she thinks about what he did, and all that happiness fades away in an instant. The rise and fall of it always breaks her and sets her recovery back.

Progress is tough to come by and Yang spends a long time trying to convince herself that the last part of what Taiyang said is true.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> continuation of the previous chapter, in m's pov, using another song  
> so i used a dead meme from 2017 k bye
> 
> the way life goes → lil uzi vert + oh wonder  
>  _If she ever call my phone you know I gotta dead her_  
>  _But I like that girl too much, I wish I never met her_  
> 
> 
> _Hello I was listening to this song_  
>  _It goes like_  
> 
> 
> _I know it hurts sometimes but you'll get over it_  
>  _You'll find another life to live_  
>  _I swear that you'll get over it_  
>  _I know you're sad and tired_  
>  _You've got nothing left to give_  
>  _You'll find another life to live_  
>  _I know that you'll get over it_  
> 
> 
> _Wish I never ever ever told you things_  
>  _I was only only trying to show you things_  
> 

 

#### 4 → the way life goes

 

“You’re still thinking about her,” Emerald said.

She was definitely saying it more as a statement than a question. It pissed him off that she knew him so well.

Emerald peered at him. “Are you crying?”

Mercury sniffed. “Just because I’m sniffing,” he said, “doesn’t mean I’m bawling my eyes out.”

“Whatever, I’m sure you wanted to at some point.”

“Fuck off.”

Emerald’s expression softened then. Great, now she’s concerned.

But she was also right. There was nothing he wanted to do more than bury his face in his hands, but he wasn’t about to break down in front of Emerald. He had before, but not for this reason, not over some girl.

He felt guilty and sorry. He had hurt her and he could never go back to her. He couldn’t talk to her if either of them wanted to and he couldn’t see her again. And now was the worst possible time to break down.

“Mercury,” Emerald said. She looked around to check if they were alone. Then she put her hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry. I know you’re not feeling your best, but we have to get moving.”

“I know.”

They had places to go. Cinder had plans and if he ditched, he knew she would kill him herself.

* * *

They made the poor decision of getting salad together for lunch. It was a bad decision not because salad was a lousy food, but because Yang kept making unbearable puns.

“Lettuce eat,” she said after they sat down in the empty dorm room and set their take-out on the table.

Mercury rolled his eyes. “Yang, no.”

She grinned. “What? Orange you eggcited to eat?”

“More puns? Are you serious?” He gestured dramatically at his food. “Right in front of my salad?”

Yang laughed for real then, at the meme reference. He pretended not to notice how nice her laughter sounded or how brightly she smiled.

Instead of kindly handing the package of utensils over, he threw it at her, hoping to catch her off guard while she giggled.

To his disappointment, she caught it and reacted to his visible dismay with a smug smile. “Oh come on, don’t be salty.”

Mercury tackled her to the ground and tickled her. Yang shrieked and tickled back, poking his ribs and sides, and they began to wrestle, their food forgotten on the table. Soon enough they were a laughing, screaming, giddy mess on the floor.

He knew she had her suspicions. Yang wasn’t dumb. They sparred too often for her not to notice her fist brushing plain fabric where there should have been flesh, or hitting something that didn’t quite feel like bones.

So when he felt her grab his leg and they both froze, Mercury knew there was no avoiding the topic. It got quiet. No one said anything and all Mercury could hear were their heavy breaths and his racing heart. Slowly Yang got off of him and they sat on the floor while he confirmed that his legs were not real, and that he had lost his real legs a long time ago.

* * *

Maybe if he hadn’t told her all that, he wouldn’t feel like this now, whatever this was. But he liked her too much and he had gotten attached too quickly. He told her about his prosthetic legs, but held back all the shit about his father’s abuse. She didn’t need to know.

Yang was literally too bright and sunny for all that dark, traumatic stuff. He looked at her and all he saw was her overwhelmingly happy life. She loved her sister, her sister loved her. She had a loving family. She was close with her teammates, who cared deeply about her. She even had a puppy for fucks sake. When he had met her, she was always beaming, always radiant, always brilliant.

And now… he didn’t know. He had probably ruined her life.

But Mercury told himself that this was for the best. He had always been too dark for her anyways.

* * *

Emerald tried, she tried really hard, to make him feel better. She was the only one who had known about Yang, so when they were alone, she spoke up.

“You okay?”

Mercury lay down on the floor and crossed his arms behind his head. He took a deep breath, then exhaled before answering. It didn’t make it any easier. “Yea, just tired.”

He had hoped she wouldn’t respond, that she would accept his lie and drop the topic. She didn’t.

“I know it hurts,” Emerald said, “but you did what you were told to do and you can’t go back. You were following orders.”

Mercury huffed and stared at the ceiling. “Not quite.”

Following orders made it seem like he was a soldier, and he sure as shit wasn’t one. He did what he wanted. At the time he and Yang had a huge fight, and he had  _ wanted  _ to follow through with Cinder’s plans. He had hurt her out of spite, which made him an even worse person.

Fuck. She definitely hated him now.

“Hey,” Emerald said. “Should I be worried?”

“No. I’ll get over it.”

He had to. He would force himself to.

“I know you will eventually.” She sighed. “I’m just worried about you now.”

Those words hit him hard. In some other lifetime, in another universe, he didn’t know Yang, he never hurt Yang, and he never lost Yang. Some other version of him didn’t feel the way he felt right now. But in this life, he knew Yang, he hurt her, and he lost her, and right here right now, he hurt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yea i totally should have warned you guys about the puns my bad


	5. Chapter 5

 

#### 5 → nothing left

 

The world slows for a moment. Or maybe it speeds by too quickly. Mercury isn’t processing anything properly; his mind is a jumbled mess. Everything appears to be real, but in the moment some part of him refuses to accept reality. He stares at the scene in horror, stuck in disbelief and denial.

_No, not this… oh for fuck’s sake no. How have I lost everything?_

When he realizes the truth, Mercury swears the entire world tilts and shakes for a second. Then it gives way. It begins to crumble and fall apart and a guttural scream is ripped from Mercury, not for the world that is collapsing around him, but for Yang who has dropped dead to the ground.

* * *

His surroundings are absolute chaos.

Mercury doesn’t care though.

The earth shakes beneath them, but people continue to fight. He doesn’t know the names of all the people on his side and he has no idea who each of them are fighting either. Could be the army of Grimm, could be actual people, but he doesn’t care because Yang is dead, her eyes still blown wide from the shock of the life-taking hit.

Mercury is supposed to be fighting someone, but he has better things to do now. He beats his opponent to the ground and whirls around to glare at Cinder.

Cinder, who he followed for years of his life, only for her to turn on him and Emerald and throw them away when she stopped needing them.

Cinder, who smirks, triumphant and smug as she stands over Yang’s body.

He heaves. He is breathing too hard. He has murder on his mind.

“Get away from her!” he yells.

But Cinder doesn’t move away. All she does is turn to face him with that infuriating grin on her face. Mercury fumes, and that’s when he glowers at her and makes his final decision. He is going to kill this bitch.

Cinder regards his raging expression and his clenched fists. She laughs her sickening, cruel chuckle. “Oh, Mercury. You know that you have no chance of winning.”

Oh he knows. He knows very well that he can’t overpower her Fall maiden gifts, but nothing changes. He plans to attack her regardless. He will kick and shoot and claw and rip her apart. He can not care less about dying because this woman has taken everything from him. Yang’s corpse is on the ground and Emerald is who knows where, probably dead too. He has no one to trust, no one to love, no one to confide in.

It’s the end of the world and Mercury has lost everything. Nothing left to lose, he charges at the Fall maiden.

* * *

Mercury believes that death is death. When you are done, you are done. There is nothing afterwards. There is no heaven, no underworld where you live a perpetual happy life. He believes that you die and that’s it: you are gone forever. So when he slips away, it’s not the thought of joining Yang in some bullshit afterlife that’s on his mind. Rather, it’s the thought of departing the world with her, admittedly a few minutes behind, that comforts him.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “For all those in love, out of love, and everything in between” (from _this modern love_ )  
> Mercury is definitely in the in between.

 

#### 6 → in between

_ Slowly falling in… _

He knows he screwed up when he finds himself reaching out more than he pulls away. It is as if he is a planet, orbiting the Sun, always attracted.

Well she’s definitely radiant. And a beauty, and funny, intelligent, adventurous, and  _ oh no it’s happening. _

Mercury instantly drops the hand reaching out for Yang and returns it to his side. Before that realization, he wanted to run his hands through her hair and play with the ends of her golden locks, but now he resists that urge.

He can’t do this.

Yang turns around and gives him a puzzled look, tilting her head to the side. “What’s wrong?”

He shakes his head. “Nothing.”

Her eyebrows draw together and she still looks concerned. He tries to ignore her annoyed pout and tells himself that he’s not bothered by it. Because he isn’t. He’s not supposed to care so much about how she feels, what she worries about, what she thinks of. He’s not supposed to care about her, or anyone at all.

Yang wraps her arm around his waist, pulling him towards her suddenly, and places a feather light kiss on his jaw.

The guilt that washes over him is a sure sign. He’s falling in.

 

* * *

 

_ and then out… _

He doesn’t hate her. He only truly hates his father; he can never feel that way about Yang. One fight can’t change that. A break up can’t change that. He won’t let it.

He is very, very slowly getting over the end of their relationship. It’s a grueling, agonizing process, but he finds himself making progress and eventually letting go of her piece by piece. Forgetting her awful puns and dad jokes, not thinking about the smell of her hair, not moping whenever he hears her favorite song.

Heartbreak’s a bitch, they say. For Mercury it is more of a poison, a curse, or a disease.

She doesn’t leave him completely. She is still with him in some ways, lingering in the edges of his conscious mind, not quite gone because some troubled part of him doesn’t want her to go.

Mercury sits on the floor, his leg propped up on Emerald’s coffee table while he works on prosthetic maintenance. He silently twists the metal screws in place and tightens them with the screwdriver. He is not thinking about anything in particular, but then Yang invades his mind suddenly.

In one moment he’s alone, doing one of the most boring tasks ever created on Remnant, and then in the next, Yang appears next to him. They switch gears. His leg is on her lap, her arm in his hands. They fix up each other’s prosthetics in the comfortable silence.

Mercury steals a glance at Yang and smiles to himself. It’s weird to have someone else handling your parts. Mercury never thought he could trust someone like that, but he trusts Yang enough to let her do this.

Yang turns towards him and flashes a grin. Mercury knows what’s coming. He braces himself for the impending awful pun--

Mercury blinks and reality rearranges itself. He finds himself counterproductively unscrewing the piece that he tightened minutes ago before Yang materialized. Realizing that’s she’s gone, or that she was never there in the first place, Mercury curses and flings the screwdriver to the other side of the room. It hits the wall with a sound loud enough to wake Emerald, who sure won’t be happy about it, but Mercury doesn’t care.

He sighs and stares up at the ceiling, troubled by the fact that his mind betrayed him like that.

His eyes find the clock which reads 12:00, midnight, signaling another day to live without.

It sucks when you’re not in love, and you’re not quite out of it either. Mercury feels trapped in between.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dumping my gng week writing here, so there's a chance you might have already read this on tumblr

**first meeting (in a while)**

**...**

It scares Mercury that it’s the moments  _ afterwards  _ that he treasures the most.

After rushing to the door at the sound of the locks turning, after greeting Yang with a bear hug and a mumbled “I missed you.” Enjoying the feeling of Yang burying her face in his neck. Getting tingly shivers when she smiles against his warm skin. Knowing that she is just as giddy as he is to finally meet again. Running his fingers through her hair and realizing that it’s been far too long since he has been able to do that.

After reunion sex, after both of them have come enough times to satisfy them for the time being. Their bones ache and their muscles are sore and they feel entirely spent as they’re coming down, but it’s not in the bad way, not at all. They’re blissfully burnt out. Breathing heavily, making out lazily, giggling, and basking in their sweaty afterglow.

It’s afterwards that Mercury feels the most content. Because after is when all of this happens: silently gazing at each other, running fingers along each other’s skin, nuzzling and prodding and poking, being gentle for once with featherlight touches and warm smiles.

This the partially the result of seeing each other so infrequently--their time together is limited and their schedule is anything but regular. Yang is almost always on missions, and Mercury has jobs of his own, just not supplied by people who work for the greater good. Mercury spends a lot of the time that he knows he has with Yang for certain observing her. Memorizing how it looks when she smiles, when she laughs, when she cries. Learning by heart the slope of her shoulders, the colors of her eyes, the scent of her hair, the shape and feel of each of her hands. It’s important because soon enough he will wake up and she won’t be next to him, she’ll be on another mission on the other side of Remnant; these memories and photos will be all he has left.

It also serves as a means of catching up. They search for the new injuries that mar each other’s skin, scratches and blemishes that weren’t there last time, and in the process they figure out what the other has been doing.

Mercury takes one lingering look at her. He smirks because he instantly knows that she has been up to no good. Though she was officially working, he suspects that she was subtly searching for trouble, probably caused a ruckus here, got into a fistfight there, all in the name of adventure and having a good time. He is proud of her for that in his own way.

“You’ve been busy,” he says.

“So have you.” Yang reaches for a scar on the side of his neck and runs her fingers along the damaged skin. “What happened here?”

“Some kind of new weapon,” he mutters. The smirk fades away. “The blade cut right through my Aura.”

A look of concern flashes across her face, but that’s all it is: a flash. It’s gone within the second and although they agree that it is alarming information, they both decide that it is a problem for another day. This day is theirs and theirs alone, so for now, Yang leans forward to press her lips against the scar, soft and sweet, while Mercury seeks out another injury on Yang’s body. 

Some other day, they will go investigate. Some other day, they will say their goodbyes, not knowing for sure if they are temporary or the last goodbyes they will ever say to each other. Some other day, they will go separate ways once again in order to focus on work, and Mercury thanks the gods that that day is not today.

 


End file.
